[Kombisaurus]

ok.. like 99% of computer users I've spent my entire life frustrated with the challenge of getting the colours of my prints to vaguely resemble what's on the screen.. Even just getting my shots to look the same from one screen to the next so I can do proper editing on my laptop would be nice.. Not to mention the fact that lots of people seem to think my images look "dark" when I post them here, making me wonder what proper colours actually look like.

I've had a little dabble in colour management in the past, but usually given up in frustration soon afterwards. Although the concepts behind it are all quite simple, it can be an extremely confusing topic and one that is very difficult to find the actual information that applies to ME and the hardware I have.

So... I figured the best thing to do was go back to the drawing board and start again, but this time do it properly instead of just tweaking everything by eye. I needed *something* to be calibrated properly to use as a solid reference point, and the most logical and sensible thing seemed to be to calibrate the monitor. So I ordered a ColorVision ColorPlus monitor calibration thingy last week... and it arrived today.

I know it is one of the cheapest hardware monitor calibration devices around and while I'm sure the results aren't as good as the expensive calibration tools... I am amazed what a difference this has made! Just running it on both my desktop and notebook screens has now enabled me to edit my photos on either machine with complete confidence that I won't end up with nasty suprises. This alone was worth the money I paid for it, but is only part of the benefits it gives me. It's also actually made my photos look nicer, and the software not only builds an ICC profile for photoshop but loads a LUT (look up table) to the video-card at startup so most of the colour correction is available to all apps, not just the colour-managed ones like photoshop.

I was now very happy with my screen, so I then turned to face my printer... a Canon Pixma iP6000D... this thing although lovely has been a massive headache for me trying to match colours closely with various brands of paper and ink (and an uncalibrated monitor).

So I turned to google for answers... and went hunting down as much info as I could on printer profiles and all that kind of stuff. Now that my monitor was pretty accurate I knew exactly what my prints SHOULD be looking like. And for once it all started to make sense and click into place. I've included a number of links at the bottom of this post for some excellent further reading for those who are interested.

I then went and found the correct printer profiles for the papers I was using, configured the printer driver and photoshop correctly and started doing some test prints... and to my amazement without any manual tweaking at all the colours matched the screen almost perfectly! A million times better than before, and I didn't pull any of my hair out to get there! Given that two of my six ink cartridges have non-canon ink in them (I was in the process of going back to genuine ink because of my colour issues) I'm amazed how good it is - Even if I can't manually tweak things to get them perfect I'll still be very happy.

But in my reading I also gleaned enough info put together a rough "approach" to colour management to try to ensure consistency between camera and screen and printer, the widest colour gamut that's practical to use, and balance it with the fact that 98% of the shots I post to the web will be viewed in Internet Explorer (which doesn't support colour management at all!).

So here it is.. my colour management plan:

1. Camera (Canon 350D)
Set it to shoot using the AdobeRGB colour space to provide a wide colour gamut.

2. Monitor (BenQ FP767 17" LCD and Alienware 17" Notebook LCD)
Use ColorVision to accurately calibrate screens and build custom monitor profiles.

3. Operating System (Win XP Pro SP2)
Disable Adobe Gamma (remove it from the "Startup" group under the Start Menu) and ensure the Display Colour Management Profile is set to the new ColorPlus profile.

4. Colour-Managed Software (Photoshop CS2, Canon DPP, Corel PhotoPaint, etc)
Any software that allows the working colour space should be set to use the AdobeRGB colour space.

5. Non-Colour-Managed Software (Internet Explorer, Fax and Picture Viewer, etc)
There are no settings to make, but the ColorVision loader (or Adobe Gamma if you use that instead) will partially correct your display in non-colour-managed apps.

6. Printer Driver (Canon PIXMA iP6000D)
Go into the Printer Preferences and DISABLE all colour management/ICM functions and corrections/effect. See the first two links at the bottom of the page for more info here.

7. Finding the right Printer Colour Profiles
This is where it gets interesting. I use mainly Ilford Galerie paper and sometimes Canon paper. Both of these manufacturers provide ICC profiles that are specific to both the paper AND the printer. The Canon ones came with the printer (but aren't documented) and the Ilford ones can be downloaded free from their website. These ICC profiles are the key to accurate prints!

8. Stupid ICC Colour Profile Names
Both Canon and Ilford use rediculously obscure names for their colour profiles, making it almost impossible to identify which one you should use for the paper you might have loaded at the time. Thankfully Microsoft have released a handy little control panel applet called "Microsoft Colour Control Panel for Windows XP" which allows you to fiddle (ie Rename) these profiles to something a human might understand. Check the links section below.

8. Printing from Photoshop
When printing from Photoshop, in the Print Preview screen, change the settings to "Let Photoshop Determine Colours" (assuming you are using the printer driver settings that have disabled colour management there)... and then in the Printer Profile in photoshop select the correct profile to suit the type and brand of PAPER you are using. Follow the first two links at the bottom for more info here.

9. Printing from non-colour-managed Apps
If you are printing from an application that doesn't support Colour Management, you need to enable ICM in the Printer Preferences, and also select the correct profile for the paper you want from the Printer Properties.. and then the Printer Driver will do the best it can representing the colours.. but unfortunately because they are coming from an app that doesn't support colour management, what you see on the screen won't be exactly correct either so any difference between print and screen might be as much to do with the screen than the printer. Again, follow the first two links at the bottom for more info here.

10. Saving images for the web (or non-colour-managed apps)
I usually take a RAW file into photoshop and work on it as a PSD file... but when I need to save it as a JPG for the web or something then I will need to convert the colour space for the image from AdobeRGB to sRGB. Doing this will reduce the colour gamut available, but JPG's based on the AdobeRGB colour space have a tendency to look washed out when viewed without such a conversion. I should also embed the ICC profile in the JPG which will ensure it gets displayed correctly in any colour-managed app... but stupidly Internet Explorer doesn't support colour management! grrr.

So that's it! Confusing? Well it might sound confusing, but when you actually go through the steps it starts to make sense. There are a few terms like "colour space" and "colour profile" which you need to understand though.
I don't know if I'm doing everything right, but certainly I'm very happy with the improvement I've seen.
I wish I'd done this ages ago!

And now some linkage:

http://www.steves-digicams.com/techcorne..._2005.html
A good little tutorial that runs along similar lines to the Canon ICC Profile Guide and explains how to understand the Canon ICC profiles a bit better and set yourself up to use ICC profiles effectively to print in photoshop.

http://photography-on-the.net/forum/show...hp?t=29530
A forum thread that discusses the Canon ICC Profiles Guide which starts to make sense of things...

http://photography-on-the.net/forum/show...hp?t=25776
Another forum thread that starts with printer recommendations but soon turns into a discussion on the Canon ICC profiles with some specific settings for the i960.

http://www.forum4designers.com/archive4-...67231.html
A slightly frustrating thread that helps explain how when using a "loader" like the ColorVision loader or Adobe Gamma, part of the colour correction is done by the video card while the rest of it is done by the colour-managed application itself.

http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a.tcl?...alibration
A whole section of a forum dedicated to colour management and calibration!

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/detai...laylang=en
Download the Microsoft Color Control Panel Applet for Windows XP - Handy!

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/detai...laylang=en
Ok so this isn't about Colour Management, but it is a REALLY handy little Microsoft "PowerToy" that allows you to get thumbnails of RAW files just like JPG's... and also includes a replacement to the Picture and Fax viewer that supports RAW format files... so finally they become intergrated into the OS!

http://www.dpreview.com/news/0509/050914...ncolor.asp
Some info on the new colour management system built into Windows Vista (Longhorn).... finally we might have something fully integrated into the OS like Mac's have been doing for years!

http://www.ilford.com/html/us_english/pr...asp?RIP=PC
Download section of the Ilford website where you can search for ICC profiles to suit your printer and their various papers.